The Outsiders
by paperbkryter
Summary: A "baby Clark" fic. Clark's twelve and feeling a bit alienated. Please apply the usual disclaimers


Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the Smallville characters and am not using them to profit in any way.   
  
This is a back-story from Clark's childhood.  
  
  
  
  
It was summer in Smallville Kansas.  
  
The fields were planted, and the crops of corn and beans and other vegetables soaked up the sunlight to grow tall, while the young stock fattened upon acres of rich green grass. Likewise the children of Smallville flourished under the sunny skies and the watchful eyes of their parents as they ran wild; free from their school day fetters. Skinned knees, poison ivy, mosquito bites and sunburn were common sights upon their small bodies, and their throats were hoarse from shouts and laughter. Jam jars were in short supply as they caught butterflies and fireflies and the occasional garter snake; the latter often being employed in elaborate pranks to make the little girls scream.   
  
It was the best of times.   
  
On the playground of the elementary school, several groups of children gathered, despite the fact school was not in session. The grounds were open for children to play, and they took advantage of the swings and gymnasiums and the wide open space of the kick-ball court. A game was currently in session, and Pete Ross, his dark skin splotched with pale pink smudges of Calomine lotion, was pitching. He waited as the next player came up to the plate, idly scratching at his poison ivy, and glancing surreptitiously at the gaggle of girls who were watching the game. He grinned as one of them whispered to her friend and giggled. Much to his annoyance, his pitch went awry and the girls were not impressed. He grimaced as he ran to retrieve the ball from under the jungle gym.  
  
From above him he heard a "pop," and he looked up.   
  
"Smooth move Ross."   
  
Pete grinned. "Greetings bat-boy."   
  
Clark grinned back, and blew another bubble.   
  
He was hanging upside down from the topmost bar of the jungle gym, chewing gum and observing his comrade in arm's attempts to impress the girls with a great deal of amusement. Pete was providing Clark with a lot of amusement that summer, beginning with the ill fated re-enactment of Robin Hood in the woods behind the Kent farm, where Pete decided his "hideout" would be the hollow of a dead tree. Clark had to admit, the overgrown vines of poison ivy made great cover if one wanted to ambush the sheriff, but the itching couldn't be much fun.  
  
As if picking up on Clark's thoughts, Pete scratched his elbow.  
  
"Are you going to play or are you just going to criticize my pitching?"  
  
Clark started to swing slightly back and forth, his t-shirt slipping towards his shoulders. "I'm just going to criticize your pitching." he said, pushing it back down (or up - considering his current position) and holding it there.   
  
"Suit yourself." Pete shrugged, and at a call from one of the other boys, returned to the game.  
  
Clark watched him go somewhat wistfully.   
  
He wanted to play.   
  
Kick-ball was a relatively "safe" game for Clark, considering there tended to be little physical contact between players and therefore less risk of injury if one of the participants happened to be able to bench press a truck. He had played before - once - and been seriously lectured afterwards when he'd let that information slip to his parents. What would happen, they asked, if he threw the ball a little bit too hard when tagging someone out, or ran just a trifle too fast around the bases? What if he fell on the pavement? How would he explain a skinned knee that healed overnight?  
  
Gym class stressed them out enough. Extra curricular sports were an absolute taboo.   
  
Gym. Clark grimaced. For once he'd like to actually dodge the balls instead of getting completely pounded immediately and having to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the game. There were also one or two bullies he thought needed to have a ball bounced off their heads - hard - particularly the ones that always laughed at him when he fell down. They were the worst.  
  
Clark swung back and forth by his knees, raising his arms above his head, and allowing his t-shirt to slide down again. It was too big for him, as were a lot of his clothes, because he grew so quickly Martha couldn't keep up with the shopping. He wore out his shoes quicker than he outgrew them, and thus they were the only things that actually fit him correctly, giving the overall impression of a kid wearing his father's clothes. Combined with the fact that at the age of twelve Clark was horribly thin, many people wondered if Martha weren't starving him. In truth, Clark was semi-anorexic. If Martha didn't nag him, he'd eat hardly anything. He liked the food he got, but he very rarely experienced the sensation of feeling hungry, and often forgot about meal time.   
  
He continued to swing back and forth, his body gradually increasing its arc, until he swung up high enough to unlock his knees from around the bar. A quick half flip, and he landed on his feet in the dust below the jungle gym - and promptly tripped over an untied shoelace - falling face first in the dirt to spoil the perfect landing. It wouldn't be the first time. Clark was getting pretty used to kissing the dirt.   
  
Not only was Clark very thin, but he seemed to be made up of nothing but knees, elbows and eyes. The knees and elbows gave him no end of trouble, always seeming to be in the way of his locomotion. He felt eternally thankful to whatever odd humored god made him heal quickly because he spent more time lying in a tangled heap on the ground than he did standing upon it. His eyes also got him in trouble. Large, long lashed, and set above rather delicately cut cheekbones, his eyes had often caused him to be mistaken for a girl when he was smaller. Now they simply made him look a little bit daft, and when he fell down, his eyes widening further with surprise, people tended to laugh at him. Pete, (and if the name ever leaked out to the general public Clark would kill him) called him "Bambi."  
  
At least he was taller than the girls now. Pete still hadn't hit his first growth spurt, and when he got on a roll with his Bambi jokes, Clark shut him up by reminding him of that fact.   
  
He picked himself up out of the dirt, after quickly looking around to make sure no one had seen his fall, and rested his chin on his knee as he tied the wayward shoelace. He sabotaged himself enough with his own body without adding the untied shoelace to the mix. In the distance he could hear the other boys shouting and laughing, and he tried to drown it out by cracking his gum. It was a futile effort, for his eyes wandered back to the game anyway; just in time to see Pete strike out another kicker and win the admiration of the girls.   
  
It just wasn't fair.   
  
"Its just a stage." his mother told him. "You're at the awkward age Clark, give it time."   
  
That wasn't his main concern. He could grow out of the awkward age and be the most graceful human being on the planet, but he still wouldn't be able to play kick-ball - or any sport for that matter because after nine years he really didn't anticipate growing out of the ability to flip the tractor upside down. Martha's inability to console him on that point had made Clark cry, which made things even worse considering it turned him into a runny nosed mess, embarrassed him, and made his voice get weird. It was already changing, switching octaves with every other word, and crying rendered him barely comprehensible.   
  
Clark lowered his eyes away from the ball game, and a tear fell from his lashes into the dirt besides him. Struggling to prevent more, he sat tracing concentric circles around the damp spot with one finger, before suddenly lurching to his feet and turning his back on the other children. He paused at the base of the jungle gym where a quick tap of his toe sent his skateboard flipping up into his hands. It had been his consolation prize, a gift from Jonathan, and Clark spent long hours trying to learn how to use it. When in the presence of his parents he wore every bit of safety equipment known to man; not so much for protection as for insurance that he would not scrape himself up and again call attention to how quickly he healed. When they were not around, however, Clark did as he pleased, and he pleased to do his skateboarding as he was dressed now: in shorts and a t-shirt.  
  
That uniform had its drawbacks. He currently sported a pair of skinned knees from a nasty spill he'd taken just that very morning when one wheel caught on a stone, jerking the board to a stop and sending Clark flying. As he put the skateboard down on the pavement, he paused to examine the scrapes. They were already nearly gone, and would be completely healed by supper-time, a fact that made him breathe a lot easier as he planted one foot on the board and pushed off with the other. Nothing to have to explain to his parents.   
  
The skateboard shot across the smooth blacktop, carrying Clark away from the kick-ball courts and the play equipment. He turned it into the graceful arcs of a serpentine pattern using subtle shifts in his body weight, pausing to give the occasional push when he felt his speed decreasing. Clark's balance was actually quite good, when he wasn't using his own limbs to get him from point A to point B, and he was quite skilled at getting around on the board after only a few days practice. It was the more intricate tricks he found difficult, for then his gangly limbs conspired against him, but he refused to give up trying to learn them. He headed for the teachers parking lot where he could practice jumping over the parking blocks and down the curbs. He would have to be careful not to re-injure his banged up knees, he thought, or he'd get busted and that would be the end of the skateboard.   
  
The pavement, warmed by the bright sun, sent up waves of heat from its surface which Clark could feel as little eddies of current in the air around him. He'd always been sensitive to air currents of all sorts, which puzzled him like everything else he could do that was far beyond "normal". Why was he able to sense fluctuations in the way the air moved? To what purpose did this knowledge serve? He did not know the answers, but he knew the rise and fall of the heated air over the blacktop felt good against his outstretched hands, and the wind rifling his hair lifted his spirits. He wished there were somewhere he could go to really get going on the skateboard - to race up to the top of a half pipe ramp and feel the board beneath his feet leap over the edge up into the air...  
  
To fly....   
  
Clark put a foot down, stopping the skateboard.   
  
Apparently he wasn't the only one not playing the reindeer games today.   
  
He blew a bubble, popped it, and glanced back over his shoulder. There, sitting at one of the picnic tables by the back door of the school, was Rebecca MacInnis. She had some books and papers before her on the table, but her attention was not occupied by them in the slightest. Instead she was gazing out across the playground at a group of girls playing basketball.  
  
Clark did not know Rebecca well, but he knew her. Her parents ran the bakery, her mother worked part time in the school office as a secretary, and until the previous year Rebecca had been a frequent participant in the summer activities. As one of the tallest girls in school, she played a lot of basketball. She even played with the boys and beat them, much to their ultimate horror. Last year, however, she had been diagnosed with severe juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, resulting in her mother immediately stopping all activities. Rebecca now wore splints on her legs, and sometimes had to use crutches to help herself get around. She usually avoided the playground she used to love.   
  
Clark wondered why she was here, then it dawned on him that her mother must be working, for on occasion Mrs. MacInnis filled in to teach English during summer school.   
  
He hesitated, then went over to talk to her.   
  
"Hi Becky."   
  
She started, and turned her head to see him standing beside her. "Oh, hi Clark."  
  
Rebecca reminded him of Peppermint Patty from the Snoopy cartoons with her red-brown bob haircut and the freckles scattered across her nose. She even had a rather gravelly voice. Not particularly pretty, her best features were a pair of vividly green eyes, and a sweet, toothy smile much like Clark's own. She was not smiling now. In fact, it was plainly obvious she had been crying. Clark noted it before she bowed her head once more over her books, and he glanced over at the group of girls laughing as they practiced their free throws. Free throws had been Rebecca's specialty.  
  
He put down the skateboard and sat down across from her at the picnic table.   
  
"Your mom working today?"   
  
She nodded, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Yeah. We have to leave for Metropolis right when she gets off, so I had to come too."  
  
"Metropolis is fun." Clark leaned his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. "What are you going to do there?"  
  
"I have a doctor's appointment."   
  
"Oh." He winced. Nice one Kent, obviously something she doesn't consider much fun. He fished around for something else to say.   
  
On the table were a stack of library books, a couple of magazines, and several sheets of drawing paper. Clark looked at the pencil drawings she'd made on the paper, craning his neck to see them right side up, and his grey eyes got bigger. She'd been drawing little cartoons, and not only were they very well drawn, but when Clark read the dialog he started laughing.   
  
Rebecca peered up at him through the fall of her bangs.   
  
Clark grinned at her. "Those are really good Becky!" Then immediately blushed as his voice cracked on the word "really".  
  
She only smiled. "Really?"  
  
He nodded vigorously, not trusting his voice.  
  
"It gives me something to do." She said, nodding towards the basketball court. "Since I don't play anymore."  
  
He followed her gaze and watched the girls shoot for a moment. "You'd still beat them at free throws Beck, they stink."  
  
Rebecca started to laugh. "They do, don't they." She heard him pop a bubble, and looked back. "Do you have another piece of gum?"  
  
Clark silently produced one from his pocket.   
  
"Thanks."   
  
After a moment spent getting her gum started, Rebecca blew a bubble, popped it with a crack, and picked up her pencil again. She did not, however, go back to her drawing but instead gave Clark a very analytical look.   
  
"How come you never play ball Clark?"  
  
He looked down, toying with a stray pen and mentally sorting through his "excuse" list for an appropriate answer. He settled on one that wasn't far from the truth: "I'm not very good at sports."  
  
Only because he was never allowed to play.   
  
"You do okay with that thing." Rebecca pointed at the skateboard with her pencil. "And kick-ball isn't that hard. You never play anything." Her cheeks began to slowly color. "I - I noticed it before and - and after I got sick I wondered if maybe - you weren't like me. Different." With a scowl she shook her head. "Or like my mom says - 'special'."  
  
Parental platitudes, Clark thought. You weren't handicap, you were "special". You weren't a freak of nature, you were "gifted."  
  
Yeah right.   
  
Clark looked into her earnest expression and suddenly realized she was desperately lonely. "Am I like this?" he asked himself, with some amount of surprise. He had friends. Pete was always around, and the new girl Chloe, was turning out to be a lot of fun. Rebecca had friends too, because Clark had seen her with Jodie Melville and a couple of the other girls at lunchtime giggling over some teen magazine. Yet, when he looked at her now, and listened to the longing in her voice, he understood exactly what she felt. It wasn't the lack of friends that made her feel lonely, but the fact she was different from the others. No matter what, she would always be set apart from them, and that was something Clark understood all too well. Rebecca wanted someone to understand. She needed someone to understand.  
  
He gifted her with the truth, or as much as he dared give her.   
  
"I'm not really allowed." he said quietly. "I'm kind of clumsy, and bigger than the other kids. My parents are afraid I might hurt someone, so I'm not allowed to play group sports." His smile was shy. "So I guess I am different."  
  
Rebecca studied him quietly for a moment, and Clark saw her eyes grow hopeful. "My doctor says that exercise is good for me. But my parents won't let me play either. They're afraid I might fall."  
  
"Oh." Clark paused. "Maybe - maybe we can do something together. Just you and me. Like practice our free throws. That wouldn't be too rough for you, and I wouldn't have to worry about running into anyone if it was just us. Would your mom say yes?"  
  
The look on Rebecca's face was beatific. Her grin stretched from ear to ear, and the color rose in her cheeks. "I think she might, if I was careful. That would be great!" She frowned suddenly. "But can we do it at my house? Not here, I mean?"   
  
She was embarrassed of her splints Clark realized.   
  
"Do you have a hoop at home?"  
  
"Uhhuh."  
  
"Okay." he said. "But you have to tell me how to get there."  
  
The grin returned, and she pulled out a sheet of paper. "I'll write it down."   
  
Clark watched her write down the directions, complete with a funny little map, while he blew blew bubbles and cracked his gum. She lived in town, way on the other side, but he had his bike. He told her he could come over the next day after chores.   
  
When she finished, Rebecca looked up at him again and bit her lip shyly. "Are you good at coloring?"  
  
His brow furrowed. "I haven't for a long time, but yeah I guess."  
  
"I need help coloring in my comics. You want to help?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
******************  
  
Rebecca and Clark spent the rest of the afternoon coloring in her comics, poking a little bit of fun at the basketball girls, and playing word games, (Clark kicked her butt at hangman), until Mrs. MacInnis came out and Rebecca gathered up her things to go. Wide eyed pouting stares from both of them convinced Mrs. MacInnis that a carefully conducted free throw practice would indeed take place the next day, and Rebecca went off to her doctors appointment in much higher spirits. Clark felt a bit better himself, and continued on his way to the teachers parking lot to practice his skateboarding until Pete showed up. Pete had also gotten a "date" when he'd been invited to go skating with some of the mixed group of girls and boys who'd participated in the kick-ball game. One little girl in particular was paying him a great deal of attention, despite his poisoned ivy and his wayward pitching.   
  
Clark told him about Rebecca.  
  
"You're a good Samaritan Clark."   
  
"I just know what its like to always be on the outside looking in." Clark replied, as he stashed the skateboard under a bush by the front steps, and climbed up onto the porch. "I'll see you later."   
  
"Later." Pete collected his bike from the Kent's barn, and headed for home.   
  
From inside the house Clark could smell the sweet tomato-y aroma of spaghetti sauce and the sharp scent of garlic, and in a rare occurrence, he heard his stomach growl. He was hungry, and thought back to what meal he'd missed that day - breakfast and lunch - that explained it. With a grin, he burst into the house. He loved spaghetti.   
  
"Wash!" Martha called, the moment she heard the screen door creak, and Clark diverted his course from the kitchen to the bathroom instead.   
  
He checked the status of his knees while he washed up. The scrapes were gone, as predicted, and they had left no sign of ever being there in the first place. Pleased, he wandered back out into the kitchen where Martha stood at the butchers block cutting up vegetables for a salad. He popped a bubble as he lifted a pot lid on the stove to investigate the spaghetti sauce.   
  
"That better not be gum I hear."  
  
Clark winced. He'd forgotten.  
  
He swallowed the gum.   
  
"And you better not have just swallowed it."   
  
He turned around to find her looking at him. "How did you know?" He saw her grin as his voice shifted in mid sentence.   
  
"I'm your mother. I know everything. Hand it over."  
  
With a sign, Clark dug in his pocket and handed over the rest of the gum, which Martha investigated with a scowl.   
  
"Clark how many times have we told you, if you get a cavity and have to go to the dentist....."  
  
They spoke in tandem.   
  
"....you might be discovered."  
  
"I know, I know...." he finished. "I'm sorry. But really mom, how likely is that?"  
  
She sighed. "We don't know Clark, and not knowing we cannot take the risk. Okay? No more candy."  
  
He pouted.   
  
Martha relented. "Get sugar-less next time."  
  
Clark grinned. "Okay." He pulled up a stool and sat down watching her.   
  
After a long moment of silence, he cleared his throat.   
  
"Mom."  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"My gifts are sort of a handicap, aren't they?"   
  
Martha looked up at him, pausing in the act of dumping a handful of chopped carrots into the salad bowl. "I don't know if I would necessarily call them a handicap Clark."  
  
"But they prevent me from doing things, so why couldn't they be called a handicap?"   
  
She let go of the carrots, shrugging. "I guess. I don't think they hold you back as much as they require...adaptation? But I see your logic."  
  
"I think I'd rather look at myself as being handicapped than being a freak." he said, snagging a piece of carrot before it went into the bowl.   
  
Martha's reaction to that statement was nothing short of startling. It made Clark flinch.  
  
She slammed the knife she was holding down upon the cutting board with a bang, and her green eyes flashed with temper very rarely seen, as she gave her son an infuriated glare. "Clark Joseph Kent, you are not a freak, and I never want to hear that word come out of your mouth ever again! Do you understand me?"  
  
He stared at her, speechless.   
  
"Do you understand me?"   
  
He nodded.   
  
Her hands shook a little bit as she picked up her knife and resumed her task.   
  
"What am I then?"  
  
Martha didn't answer right away. "You're a little boy," she said finally. "Who just happens to be able to lob the cows over the barn, no big deal, now go set the table."  
  
The joke told Clark she was upset and didn't want to continue the discussion. It also meant she had no answer to the question.   
  
That scared him, especially since it was a question he'd asked before and still they could not answer it.   
  
"Would my real parents know?" he ventured. "I mean, " he added hastily. "If sometime down the road I decided to look them up...."   
  
"I don't know Clark." Martha said quietly. "I don't know if you'd ever be able to find them." Again she put her knife down, but more gently this time. "What's on your mind Clark? Why have you brought this up?"  
  
Clark very carefully searched for words, not wanting to set her off again. Outside he could hear his father calling to the cows as he fed them their evening meal, but inside the house was very quiet except for the ticking of the clock in the living room, and the pots bubbling on the stove.   
  
"I was talking with Becky MacInnis today. She invited me over tomorrow, just to shoot some baskets, not to really play." He made a face. "Is that okay?"  
  
A nod.   
  
"She made me realize I'm not the only one who feels like an outsider sometimes. She's kind of lonely I think."  
  
Martha gave him a measured look. "Are you lonely Clark?"   
  
He looked down at his hands, picking at a bit of dirt under one nail. "Sometimes." he admitted. "The difference is there are other kids like Becky out there, you know? Handicapped kids with disabilities like hers. I mean, I'm sorry she's sick but, at least she understands why she's different."   
  
"And you don't." Martha said softly. It was not a question.   
  
Clark looked up and met her gaze. "There isn't anyone else in the world like me, is there?"  
  
It took a while for Martha to reply.  
  
"No." she said.   
  
He sighed, made a wry face. That was the answer he'd been dreading to hear. He'd always known it to be true, but had never before actually come out and asked. His eyes flickered to his mother, and he could see that she was on the verge of tears. It had hurt her as much to say it as it hurt him to hear it. What few answers she could give him about himself, his origins, his life, would always be painful ones. Clark suddenly felt very selfish. He was not in this alone after all.   
  
"But I'm lucky you know." he said finally.  
  
Martha bit her lip, so that she would not cry. "How is that Clark?"  
  
"I don't think there is anyone else like you and dad out there either." He gave her a slow, sweet smile.   
  
With a matching smile, Martha rounded the butcher's block table and gave him a hug. Clark returned it, as always, carefully.   
  
"I love you mom."   
  
"I love you too sweetie."  
  
There was a pause.   
  
Martha drew back and lifted his right arm, revealing his elbow. There, nearly healed but still very ugly, was a scabbed over scrape. "What's this?" She demanded.   
  
Clark looked. He'd missed that one. Darn.  
  
Their eyes met.   
  
Goodbye skateboard, he thought.   
  
Shaking her head and trying not to smile, Martha scolded: "Don't let your father see it it, and don't let me catch you on that skateboard again without pads at the very least."  
  
Clark grinned.   
  
Now if he could only talk her into the trampoline..... 


End file.
